


Overturned Shelves

by Blame Canada (OneHitWondersAnonymous)



Category: South Park
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Gay, M/M, No Smut, One Shot, Prompt Fic, Romance, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 05:10:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8191453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneHitWondersAnonymous/pseuds/Blame%20Canada
Summary: Craig had done everything in his power to give Tweek his trust that everything would be fine while he was away from home. He'd done a pretty good job of convincing himself, too. It wasn't until he returned to his doorstep that he started to doubt his convictions. Tweek had an oddly destructive way of coping.
Rated T for swearing. Fluffy grown-up Creek AU.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, here for my OTP and this prompt I found that screamed Creek at me! The prompt was 'You had a business trip and I missed you so much that I kind of tore up the house in your absence like a dog with separation anxiety… sorry?' I took bits and pieces of that and whipped this up. Enjoy! :)

The first thing Craig noticed was the welcome mat. He was secretly a sucker for shitty home design shows, and Tweek never cared to rein him in with it (although he probably should have at least a little) so they somehow managed to own a wide variety of them, among other knickknacks. It would’ve been impressive if hoarding welcome mats was something to be impressed about.

In the time that he’d been out of town the holiday season had changed from generic-summer to early fall, and every holiday season warranted a new mat. This was a Tweak-Tucker household staple. The one Craig was currently staring at still had a smiling sun and stupid saying he couldn’t remember that’d been partially rubbed out from use. It was clearly the August mat. It was September fourth, which meant the change was four days overdue. It was very unlike him to have forgotten. Craig frowned and fumbled with his keys.

When he’d made plans to visit his family back in South Park, Tweek hadn’t been able to come because of his work’s demands. He didn’t have the vacation time for it either, since he needed it for his ‘mental health days,’ as his mom had once called them. From the moment Craig booked his flight Tweek had done everything in his power to prove that he would be perfectly alright by himself. It was pretty funny but Craig let him have it. Of course Tweek was capable of being an independent human being. “I-I’m just going to miss you,” he’d said sheepishly after dropping a cup he’d failed to dry off. Craig sighed with a small smile and helped him clean the glass. Of course he’d be fine, he’d just miss him. Craig would miss him too.

They didn’t spend a lot of time apart, truthfully. Craig had tried not to think anything of it, but he’d gotten so used to reminding Tweek of little morning and nightly routines that he wondered if Tweek would do them himself. They’d texted and called each other intermittently and he’d seemed fine, so he forced himself not to worry. Now two weeks had passed and he was finally back on his doorstep, but the welcome mat was wrong, and he was worried all over again.

His keys finally found purchase in the second lock and he swung the door open slowly. A greeting died in his throat as he took a glance at the living room.

It looked like someone had taken everything on every shelf and ledge in the entire room and tossed it on the floor. The bookshelves were empty save for a few scrap pieces of paper, books stacked in odd piles in front of them. The floor was hardly visible in places. It looked like an abandoned warehouse. Craig cleared his throat nervously and lugged his suitcase over the threshold. He shut the door behind him quietly to hear the soft _click_ of the handles interlocking and flipped on the light switch.

“Tweek?” He called out to the seemingly empty home. The room looked even stranger under artificial lighting. All their things were strewn listlessly over the carpet. He strode through a makeshift pathway toward the kitchen. Tweek hadn’t responded yet. “Tweek?” he called again, “I’m h-“ His voice was cut short by a loud thud from upstairs.

His eyes widened. Fearing the worst, he whipped around the corner to hop up the stairs two by two. It had sounded like it’d come from their bedroom. _‘Great,’_ he thought to himself, _‘I come back from a long trip to a robber murdering my boyfriend.’_ When he made it down the hallway he gripped the doorframe to keep from sliding past it. He glanced in and sighed as he crumpled against the door a little in relief. _‘Oh thank God.’_

Tweek was not being murdered in their bedroom. Instead, he was dragging things out of their closet with both ear buds in, blasting music loud enough that Craig could hear its whispers from across the room. He always insisted on listening to music this way, because he couldn’t hear all the individual instruments and sounds when it was playing out of regular speakers. Too bad it made for a nasty scare any time Craig needed to actually talk to him. This was one of those times.

He knocked on the doorframe twice. “Tweek.” He didn’t answer, obviously. “Tweek?” he called out louder, but he was turned completely away from him, humming to his music off-key. He was starting to feel like a broken record. Craig swallowed thickly and started tiptoeing into the room, trying to figure out the least startling way to get his attention. He’d never find out, however, because Tweek chose that exact moment to pick up a heavy crate and turn around on one heel. They locked eyes and he let out a very loud strangled shriek, jumping back and dropping the crate from his loose grip. It missed his toes by inches.

Tweek ripped his headphones out of his ears and used the other hand to cover his probably pounding heart. His eyes were impossibly wide and Craig couldn’t help but stare. The late-morning light was filtering through the blinds in just the right way to lighten up their murky green color. In those moments alone, they were his favorite color. “Hey, I’m-“

“You’re home!” Tweek interrupted through a grin, and he hopped over the overturned crate to give him a hug he’d anticipated all day. Tweek always hugged people like it would be the last chance he’d ever have to hold them, almost too tightly but still welcoming. Craig had forgotten how much he missed them. He shimmied his arms out from Tweek’s death grip to wrap them around his back. He took an extra moment to breathe in the scent of their shared familiar shampoo in his wild hair. When they parted, Tweek paled.

“Oh Jesus, Craig, u-uh, I can explain.” His eyes darted around nervously, and Craig realized he’d completely forgotten how the house had looked downstairs.

“No, wait, let me guess.” He uttered. He looked up to the ceiling with a finger posed dramatically on his lower lip, and rumbled a low contemplative hum from his throat. “A witch conjured a mini tornado and ran it through the living room several times.”

“What?!” Tweek screeched, his hands shooting up to grip at his hair behind his ears out of habit. “Can witches do that? God, no!”

“Okay, then let’s see.” Craig took Tweek’s hands and coaxed them away from his hair without thinking about it. He was having a very hard time keeping a straight face through his game. “You befriended a wild muddle of guinea pigs and allowed them to lodge in our home for several nights, and they were terrible house guests.”

“Craig,” Tweek exhaled his name, exasperated, “no. Muddle? Are there even wild guinea pigs? I thought they all just came like Stripe, all domestic and shit. No, no guinea pigs!” It was funny that he questioned the guinea pigs but not the witches. He clenched his fingers around Craig’s, which were still holding his hands in front of them. He tried pulling them away, but Craig was stubborn, and he couldn’t yank them apart. He sighed heavily and visibly sunk his shoulders in. He mumbled a response, but Craig couldn’t understand.

“What?”

“I said I wanted to reorganize it.”

“Oh.” Craig looked around, noting the disarray of storage crates littering the floor. “Is this reorganized?”

“No!” Tweek flushed with embarrassment. “It was supposed to be done before you got home, b-but I got really distracted and started wanting to do more and more and got more specific with how I wanted to do things and,” he paused to suck in a breath, “well, I ended up with this.” He looked down at Craig’s half-laced shoes. “Please don’t be mad.”

“Why would I be mad?” Craig wasn’t one for subtlety, or context clues.

“Oh I don’t know, maybe because our _entire house lookslikeafuckingdisaster!”_ His neck started reddening with splotchy rashes, which Craig knew to be a sign that he was frustrated. He released his hands. Tweek immediately crossed his arms with a pout poised on his lips in the cutest way possible, as if to spite him. “You complained about how the books were all mismatching. I was going to reorganize them by color, but then I thought m-maybe I could do by title as well, and tried to decide if I should separate hard copy from paperback or by genre, and by that time I was too exhausted by the idea of it that I couldn’t do any more than clear the shelves.” He put a palm to his forehead and grimaced as though he was biting back a painful headache.

Craig raised an eyebrow. “When was this?”

“I dunno, maybe four days ago? Five?” After a brief look into Craig’s eyes he diverted his attention back to the floor. “Once I got it all off the shelves it looked too intimidating to put back _on_ , e-even though I was trying to fix it myself.”

“Okay,” Craig said with a shrug, “I’ll help then.”

“What? No!” Tweek cried, burying his face in his hands and groaning. “It was supposed to be a nice surprise, like, you probably weren’t even going to notice at first but I was gonna try dropping hints just in case, and it was gonna be a really nice, subtle thing!”

Craig sighed and gently took Tweek’s hands again to pull them away from his flustered face. He kneeled down to equalize their eye level and tried to consciously soften his expression. He wasn’t sure if it was working, because Tweek’s expression remained stormy. “Tweek, I mentioned the book thing like once, forever ago. I honestly don’t even remember. You didn’t have to do anything and you definitely didn’t have to put so much thought into it. Thanks though.” He said, smiling to try to lighten the mood. It seemed to help a little; Tweek’s eyebrows began to unknot themselves from their scowl.

“Yeah, but now it’s just a big mess you have to worry about, after you just came home. I-I fucked up, man.” He mumbled, avoiding Craig’s eyes again.

“It’s fine. It gives us something to do instead of lay around all day, and even though it didn’t get finished, it was still nice of you to think of.”

“…I guess.”

Craig took that as a good sign and let go of one hand in favor of Tweek’s cheek, rubbing his thumb under his eye and kissing him quickly on the forehead. Tweek halfheartedly suppressed a giggle and he felt his heart melt.

“Food?” He asked, and Tweek leaned his head into Craig’s cradling palm. “I haven’t eaten in forever and I’m fucking starving. Planes never have decent shit to eat. I’m sick of the little peanut things.”

Tweek smiled. “Okay, but we need to go shopping so there isn’t a lot to choose from.”

“Anything is better than stale pretzels or peanuts.”

They tromped down the stairs and Craig scanned the room with his eyes again. He concluded it would take them all afternoon to clean everything back up, but it was fine. He didn’t really mind doing mundane things with Tweek. Nice and boring, how he liked it.

“So what about the mat?” Craig asked, partway through a sandwich. “We’re in September and that sun one is still out.”

“Aw fuck!” Tweek exclaimed, putting two distressed hands to his head in a way only overdramatic actors and Tweek did. “I knew I was forgetting something! What day is it?”

“September fourth.”

“Gah, I’m so late! Fall has my favorite decorations too! Goddammit.”

“I was worried you were dead. You love changing those things.”

“I do _not_ love changing those things, Craig, you just insist on it because you have so fucking many of them that you don’t want any of them to go to waste.”

“Nah, I’m pretty sure you love them.”

“Oh my god.”

Craig laughed a loud, genuine laugh, and Tweek bit his cheek to fight a smile. His lips still twitched upward anyway, and Craig saw. He let the warmth Tweek brought him pool in his simple words. “I missed you.”

Tweek sighed. “Yeah, I missed you too.”

“Wanna go organize some books?”

“W-well, better late than never...”

Craig smirked. “I’ll go change the mat."


End file.
